


young, never changed

by speakingincode



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, M/M, They Make It Work, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, Yamaguchi Tadashi Has Low Self-Esteem, barrier mage tsukishima, fire mage yamaguchi, it's a fantasy au but only the downtime, tsukishima is left alone with yamaguchi and has to help him get better at magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24627265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakingincode/pseuds/speakingincode
Summary: Yamaguchi, Tsukishima thinks, only does things that don't make sense. Latching onto him despite his demeanor, risking his life for him after a week and a half of knowing him. Staying glued to his side even after he joins the Miyagi Guild, despite people like Hinata and Nishinoya welcoming him in.(Tsukishima doesn’t mind it. But he can’t understand why.)Or: When Karasuno is called away on an urgent mission that Yamaguchi is too inexperienced to participate in, Daichi leaves Tsukishima in charge of his lessons. He learns to navigate his confusing relationship with his best friend.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 18
Kudos: 143





	young, never changed

**Author's Note:**

> this is a prompt from [susurration](https://twitter.com/painpackerrs)! --- some kind of magic au in which Tsukki relies on defensive magic, and Yamaguchi uses offensive magic and they have to bond."  
> BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY it is also a belated birthday gift for them!!! love you dude 💚💚💚 please go look at their art and send them love, their art is good and they deserve it :''')
> 
> a few quick things: the title is from the song [wild heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7diCFrhTPk) by bleachers! a little more important - thanks to [nira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasehurryleaveme) for helping me out with this one, especially in its early stages, when i kept sending incoherent snippets and being like "is this something??" and they would be like "yes it is something." i owe you my life....  
> OTHER THING. i tormented [my brother](https://twitter.com/jezune_) while i was writing this fic as well so if you like video games pls check him out......his ratio is suffering almost as much as he was suffering while i was writing this 😭
> 
> this fic is also the first fantasy au i've ever written and the most fun i've had writing in a long time, so i really hope you guys enjoy it! 💕💕💕

It’s on the brink of midnight when the bandits start to descend on Kei.

Their ambush is hasty, simultaneously predictable and badly planned, but Kei lets his arms go limp as they grab him, fakes at fighting back with a couple of static jolts to their skin that make them laugh.

It’s humiliating. He agreed to pretend to stand watch alone on the border of the village because Daichi asked him to (something about him being the best equipped to protect himself) but Kei can barely stand it now. Their jeers and snide comments on the real strength of Karasuno, that their group could probably take down the entire Miyagi guild with their eyes closed.

Kei remembers thinking to himself that he’d better take the role as bait because Kageyama would be too hot-headed to stay in the victim role too long. It’s like karma, that this is happening to him. Kei resolves to pretend he’s somewhere else, and then—

“Let him— Let him go!”

It’s a voice Kei recognizes immediately. The healer’s son, skinny and freckled and his face contorted with worry, some makeshift weapon in his right hand fashioned out of wood.

He’d followed him. It hadn’t occurred to Kei that he’d want to, that he might have to warn him about this. He should’ve seen between all the hero worship he looked at the team with, he looked at _Kei_ with, that he’d want some of it for himself. To be a hero, too.

(That he’d care enough about Kei to risk his life trying to save him. Ridiculous. For someone you’ve known for a little more than a week.)

“And what’s a kid like you gonna do with that?” one of the more obnoxious ones asks, mouth quirked into a smirk. Kei watches as his shoulders raise slightly, as his fingers tighten around his knife. The blade glints against the lamppost light.

“Run away, Yamaguchi! It isn’t—”

“ _Let him go_!” he yells, raising his awful weapon as Kei’s vision is consumed with light.

The shields go up by instinct, covering himself and the bandits surrounding him just before they can catch fire. A moment passes and he remembers the house behind them, by the corner Yamaguchi must have been hiding in, but it’s too late to worry about them now. All Kei would be able to do is trap them in the fire.

It’s only a second, and then the heat dissipates. Kei takes advantage of the bandits’ shock to make short work of them, the minor offensive magic he’d picked up from school and his brother enough to knock them to the ground. When Kei looks up, tears are streaming from Yamaguchi’s eyes and his pupils are the dark enough to strike Kei frozen where he stands.

“Tsukishima!” Kei hears Daichi’s voice call from behind Yamaguchi, and he remembers the house that caught fire, suddenly sees Hinata and Kageyama ushering out terrified villagers, the small fires on building roofs.

Kei almost sprints forward by instinct, but Yamaguchi’s gaze is still piercing and he pauses. Almost hesitantly, he moves forward to cover Yamaguchi’s right shoulder with his right hand, avoiding his eyes by studying the ash pressed into his fingertips.

“Go home, Yamaguchi,” he says, turning his gaze back to the disaster as he leaves him behind him.

✺

When the smoke is cleared – bandits apprehended and the evacuated villagers put up in their neighbors’ homes – Kei catches Yamaguchi sitting outside, looking up at the sky.

Yamaguchi’s eyes don’t turn to Kei as he approaches his door, and Kei thinks to himself that he could get away with pretending not to see him, with just going inside and sleeping. But he can still remember the way Yamaguchi’s face contorted when he thought he was in danger and takes the seat next to him. Wordlessly, Kei looks up at the night sky as well, absently trying to find whatever Yamaguchi’s staring at so intently.

He’ll say something if he needs to say something, Kei thinks. He isn’t sure what he would say anyway. Yamaguchi having magic he never mentioned to Kei, it being strong enough to have killed him and the entire group of bandits if Kei hadn’t put up a shield. To burn that house down completely.

No one died, Kei could say. No one died, and everyone there was apprehended anyway. But that isn’t what Yamaguchi wants to hear, Kei thinks. It isn’t what he’d want to hear, after messing up a rescue attempt and putting everyone at risk.

This situation… Kei isn’t used to doing things like this. He isn’t used to any of it, really: villagers attaching themselves to him at the hip, yammering on about how cool magic is, how cool _he_ is.

The younger kids like to follow Tanaka or Hinata around, Sugawara if they like magic, and Kei doesn’t care enough about being kind for anyone older than that to think well of him. Like he’d want them to.

But something about Yamaguchi is different. Kei can’t put his finger on what it is, but it’s been enough for everyone to notice. The small amusement Daichi seems to take when he sees them, how Hinata teases him over finally having a friend.

It’d been something. A temporary oddity, even if there’s a feeling like a twinge in Kei’s chest at the thought of temporary. Not enough for Kei to even consider that Yamaguchi might worry if he heard he got kidnapped, definitely not enough for Kei to think he might risk his life over him.

Overexcitement, Kei would call it. Visions of grandeur after having guild members in their town the first time he can remember. Wanting to be able to do it, too.

But the way Yamaguchi’s face contorted when he saw Kei taken by those men. It doesn’t feel right to call it something that simple, some strange manifestation of hero worship.

“Are you— Are you going to leave soon?” Yamaguchi asks, voice slightly detached. There’s a ghost of sadness beneath his words, not the kind Kei thought Yamaguchi was capable of. Not with the way he smiles so broadly.

“In the morning, probably,” Kei says. “We weren’t supposed to stay here this long.”

For a moment, Yamaguchi doesn’t talk, and the silence settles over them. Kei thinks about it again. The house on the other side of the village. _No one died._

He sneaks a look over at Yamaguchi again, gaze still fixed up in the sky, face illuminated by moonlight. Would he want to hear that? He wonders what this conversation would be like if things had gone differently; if he thought to warn Yamaguchi about tonight, if Yamaguchi wasn’t reckless enough to think he could save him.

He can imagine it. Yamaguchi not meeting his eyes after he says they’re leaving, badly hiding them behind too-long bangs and rubbing the back of his neck. The same way he was when he told him he wasn’t close to anyone other than his mom. Or maybe he would’ve asked him to visit, with that wide smile Kei could never reject.

Instead, they’re sitting here in silence, looking out at the singed roofs and pretending not to think about the remnants of a house on the other side of the town. Yamaguchi is so detached that the only indication that he knows Kei’s there are the words falling from his mouth.

Just as Kei is starting wonder if this silence is even comfortable, if it’s doing a single thing to help him cope, Yamaguchi’s eyes move to Kei and he breaks the silence.

“When you go, can I…” His gaze is piercing, and then breaks as he looks away and rubs his shoulder, inhaling sharply. “Can I come with you? I can… You saw it, right? My magic. I know… What happened, then, it’s… it’s never been out of control like that.”

Kei remembers the fire, the overwhelming heat that suffocated the millisecond he was exposed to it, and he can believe it, the things Yamaguchi’s saying. Thinks to himself that he would have heard of him if it had been otherwise.

“I can fight, too,” Yamaguchi says, and there’s something urgent in his voice, nervous about the way Kei hasn’t spoken. Kei isn’t sure what to do. “A little… a little bit. I’ve been practicing since I was younger! My whole life I’ve wanted to— to go out there and fight bad guys and protect everyone with you. With all of you, I mean.”

The magic, and his lofty dream. Kei thinks about the inflection in his voice. _A little._ “You never mentioned it,” Kei says, his voice oddly soft. Something about the night air, and the nearly undetectable scent of ash.

“Well…” Yamaguchi looks down again, hunching into himself. “Like I said, it’s… never been out of control like that, and… it’s never been that strong. I didn’t think I was…”

He trails off, and Kei thinks to himself that he wouldn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence, anyway. He tries to think of something to say, and when he can’t think of anything, he remembers the times he’d see his mother comfort his older brother, and pats him on the back, leaving the hand on his shoulder.

Yamaguchi sniffs, and then turns to look at Kei, eyes glistening. “I can… I can get better! I’ll work as hard as I can! Tsukki, I… It’s my dream.” He swallows as the corners of his lips turn down into a frown, the kind Kei knows he would hold down if he could. “It’s my dream, and… I don’t think I’m welcome here anymore.”

It isn’t practical. Miyagi Guild’s recruitment process has never involved random villagers they run across on missions, and their party’s still too green for any of their endorsements to matter. If any of the more senior members are even willing to endorse Yamaguchi.

But Yamaguchi’s voice is so thin, thinner than Kei’s ever heard from him, and Kei can’t stop thinking about it. The way he’s always shied away from the other villagers his age, the way they’d look at him like a bug. That all the time he didn’t spend in the clinic was with Kei, and during all that time…

During all that time, no one ever came looking for him. The only time Kei saw his neighbors talk to him was when they were asking about his mother.

“I’ll ask Daichi,” Kei says.

✺

“Of course we’re taking him with us,” Daichi says when Kei pulls him aside after breakfast.

His voice is flat and matter-of-fact, as if Kei just asked him to breathe oxygen. The crease between his eyebrows has softened with the confusion that came along with Kei asking to talk to him alone.

After a moment passes and Kei still finds himself speechless, Daichi laughs, just slightly forced. “I was wondering why you ate breakfast with us instead of at the Yamaguchi house. Strange to see. That boy’s really grown on you, hasn’t he?”

Kei only grunts in response, a sound too neutral to be admission or denial. Daichi chuckles again.

“I’ve been in touch with Suga, and he offered to help teach him to get his magic under control,” Daichi continues. “I was even able to get Kageyama to agree to do a couple of lessons until we can meet up with them again.”

“That’s good,” Kei says. Better than he thought he could get when he was imagining this conversation last night. “Thank… Thank you.”

Daichi shakes his head. “He’d be coming with us even if you hadn’t asked. After last night, it’d be irresponsible of us to leave him here,” he replies, voice sober at the memory. After Kei doesn’t reply, he rubs the back of his neck. “Well, I should go make sure we have enough supplies for the trip back. You should pack up, Tsukishima.”

Kei nods and prepares to leave, but Daichi stops him.

“Oh. Tell him for me, won’t you? Yamaguchi. We need to leave by tomorrow morning.”

“I will.”

Daichi is still talking as he starts to walk away. “You know, I was afraid I’d need to drag him away against his will. Glad he wanted to go.”

He sighs, too heavily.

“Still. Can’t pretend that it’s a surprise.”

✺

“Do you think this’ll fit with everything else, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, waving a worn hardback book in the air as he crouches in front of the cabinets in his room. “I don’t need it, but it’d be nice to keep it with me. When I was a kid, I used to read it whenever… I used to read it a lot! Maybe it’s a little immature, but it means a lot to me.”

Kei can tell, the yellow of the novel’s pages and the way Yamaguchi’s speech goes rapid-fire when he brings it up. He recognizes the image of a young boy with a flaming sword on the cover, colors fading and obscured by time.

A story about a fisher’s son finding a weapon that activated latent magic within him, coincidentally the only sword that could take down the dragon terrorizing his kingdom. The kind of book that’s dime-a-dozen, but it’s fitting, maybe, that Yamaguchi would like it.

(A lifetime ago, it’d been his brother’s favorite, a book Kei read over and over again just for that reason. _He reminds me of you,_ even though Kei’d never been as brave or earnest or unconditional. No matter what he wanted to see in him.

Kei doesn’t feel like thinking about this now.)

“It isn’t a normal bag. I already told you.” Kei sighs and gestures to the knapsack on the counter. “You could bring an elephant if you wanted. It would suffocate, but you could. I’m lending it to you so you don’t have to worry about things like this.”

“Ah, um… I don’t…” Yamaguchi is holding the book with one hand now, considering the weight of it as he balances it in his hand. He turns to Kei as he throws in the same pile as his clothes and magic book, some old student edition from a decade ago. “Thanks, Tsukki!”

Kei can hear the bitten back rejection of his offer and just barely stops himself from sighing. At least he hadn’t tried to have the conversation again. “You don’t need to thank me so much, Yamaguchi.”

Despite the huge imposition Yamaguchi thinks it is, Kei doesn’t mind letting Yamaguchi borrow the enchanted knapsack his mother gave him years ago. He didn’t pack that heavily for a stopover at a small village with a minor bandit problem, and Yamaguchi is in the process of relocating his entire life. It isn’t even a question.

After all, they still have to regroup with the other half of their party in a town three days away from here and figure out how to finish dealing with the bandits crawling all over this region. It’ll be weeks before they get back to their house in Sendai.

“But Tsukki—” Yamaguchi starts to say, still beaming at him, but he’s interrupted by his mother knocking on the side of his open bedroom door.

“Tsukishima-kun, you’re here,” she says, turning her head to smile gently at Kei as he sits crossed-legged on her son’s bed. “Are you finished packing? I have to stop by the butcher for dinner tonight. Would you mind coming with me?”

It’s a bizarre request; the entire week and a half she’s been putting up Kei, Yamaguchi’s mother has been to content to letting Kei do whatever Yamaguchi gets him roped into, mostly leaving him alone except for small talk and pleasantries. But Kei can see something in her eyes behind the weak crinkle from her smile, so instead of pointing out the strangeness of it, he says, “Okay.”

“Mom!” Yamaguchi calls out, scrambling over the piles of his things and standing up. “You can’t— Um. I’ll go with you! Or… Me and Tsukki will go!”

“Tadashi,” she says, meeting Yamaguchi’s eyes. It’s only a sentence, and only a look, but Yamaguchi must hear something in the cadence of it, understand the thing hiding behind her pupils. He sits back down the ground, the sparkle in his eyes dulled.

“I’ll keep packing, then,” he says, turning back to his closet. “Don’t take too long, okay?”

His mother walks over to him them, strokes his hair softly as she says her assent, and Kei looks away. This moment is too intimate; this room is filled with too many things he doesn’t understand. He wishes he were somewhere else.

“Mom!” Yamaguchi chides her again, the slight curve of his mouth betraying his annoyance.

His mother laughs as she says, “Come, Tsukishima-kun,” and Kei follows her out of the house.

The sun is hanging a little lower in the sky, the second before the edge of sunset. The market stalls on the way to the butcher are nearly cleared out, save for some desperate farmers and fishermen trying to sell the last of their stock. The scent of ash has given way to that of fish, and Kei wrinkles his nose.

“I hope you’re fine with the smell. It’s worse at the butcher’s. When Tadashi was younger, it used to make him faint,” Yamaguchi’s mother says, chuckling to herself. She looks ahead as she walks, not paying any special attention to Kei but not acknowledging the people around them with even a nod. “He’s grown out of it now. But… you probably know that, since you were here with him the other day.”

“Not to the butcher shop,” Kei says. Yamaguchi had been intent on fish and vegetable soup that day, after he asked Kei what his favorite thing to eat was and he told him the name of a dessert. _You should eat better, Tsukki!_

“Ah, okay,” she replies, but the person she’s thinking about isn’t the one walking beside her. “I’m making lamb and potatoes. Do you like them? It’s been Yamaguchi’s favorite, since he was younger. He’s already better at cooking than me, but it’s nice to make things for him from time to time. On his birthday, usually, or when he’s…”

She stops speaking abruptly, not changing the pace of her footsteps. Kei thinks of saying something, but telling her he has no strong feeling about what she’ll make either way doesn’t seem like it’ll clarify anything.

“Well. I guess I’ll have to get used to cooking every day again now that he’s leaving. I’m happy for him, but… Ah. We’re here.”

They enter the butcher’s, and the stench is almost unbearable. Kei thought her story about Yamaguchi fainting was exaggerated or because of a weak constitution, but he has to stop himself from gagging when he enters the shop.

“You,” the butcher greets Yamaguchi’s mom, turning to her with his eyes and not his head, and then moving his gaze back to the slab of meat below him. “What’re you here for?”

“Rack of lamb, please,” she says. “If you have any left.”

The butcher is silent as he looks up at her, his gaze piercing and unmoving as he continues the chop the meat. Kei can’t look away from his cleaver, the way it slices through flesh like butter. The dull thud of the metal as it hits the wooden table reverberates through his skull.

It’s odd; he’s seen Hinata do worse, but this kind of moment without any of the adrenaline permeates his skin, sinks deep into his stomach. He’s afraid of what might happen if he opens his mouth.

The silence is strange, the butcher staring at her as he uses his knife to bag the meat and ties the top of it closed. His look is almost expectant, like he’s waiting for Yamaguchi’s mother to say something else. Maybe amend what she’s said already. But she doesn’t take the opportunity.

The butcher laughs, low in a way that makes the atmosphere in the room uncomfortable. “If we have any left. Sun’s down in an hour, you know that?” He adds the bag to the row at his side. “Flank and shoulder. That’s what we have.”

Yamaguchi’s mother grits her teeth. “Shoulder, then,” she says pleasantly.

Kei watches the butcher take a slab of meat off of the hook it’s hanging from. As he lays it out on the butcher block and brings his knife down again. _Thud_. “You celebrating something?” the butcher asks, disgust dripping from his words. “After what happened last night?”

“It’s only shoulder,” Yamaguchi’s mother says. _Thud._

The butcher rolls his eyes. “Let me tell you,” he says, slicing through to the countertop again. _Thud._ “I always knew there was something off about that child of yours. Since the first day I saw him.”

 _Thud._ Kei can see Yamaguchi’s mother clench her fist. The queasiness in his stomach starts to rise at the same time he feels his insides turn dark. “I’m glad you were polite enough to keep that to yourself so long.”

He _tsks_. “Don’t misunderstand me, Yamaguchi-san. I’m thankful for what you do around town. When my son gets the flu, that time I almost cut off my thumb.” He punctuates his sentence with another swing of his cleaver. _Thud._ “But you need to control him better. A boy like that’ll want to finish the job sooner or later.”

“He was trying to save me,” Kei hears himself say, moving forward now, voice cutting off the sound of metal through flesh to the countertop. The words leave his mouth before they fully realize themselves. The awful stench and the disgusting atmosphere, the condescension and loathing in his words; Kei can’t hold back anymore. “He was trying to protect the village.”

“Amazing job he did of it, didn’t he?” The butcher laughs again as he drags the blade of his knife against the butcher block, bagging the meat and tying it with a quick knot. “I understand. One of us should have warned you about him earlier. Heard you’d been hanging around with him stuck to your side.”

“Warned me about—” Kei starts to argue again, in a way he never does, but Yamaguchi’s mother curls her hand around his wrist, shaking her head when Kei turns to look.

Kei backs down; this man is getting under his skin. This conversation would be easy if it were anywhere else, if it was anytime else, if Yamaguchi’s mother wasn’t here with him and Yamaguchi didn’t beg him the night before to take him away from here, eyes glistening.

But he’s angry, and unsettled, he and Yamaguchi are the ones leaving tomorrow. Not Yamaguchi’s mother.

“How much is it?” she asks, and the segue is terrible but the butcher is dropping the bag on the scale and he’s back to business now. Whatever awful theorizing about Yamaguchi he’d done doesn’t seem to be the first thing on his mind anymore.

Kei just watches then, as he tells her and she takes the money out of her purse. As he takes the bag of meat from the butcher’s hands, he tries to ignore his toothy grin.

“Sorry,” Yamaguchi’s mother tells Kei once they’re out of the butcher shop. “From everyone I saw yesterday, I knew they’d be mad at him, but I didn’t think—”

She cuts off abruptly, and then keeps walking. “You don’t need to apologize,” he says.

“Thank you for defending him. It’s— I don’t _know_ why they still hate him so much. When he was younger, he… but he was just a child. Maybe I could’ve done something different. I should’ve never come to this—”

She stops again. Shakes her head. The moment is tense, and her words too much for Kei to hear, too many things he doesn’t want to consider, but he thinks to himself that she really seems like his mother in moments like this. How she says too much.

“Tsukishima-kun,” she says, taking him aside once her house is within their line of view. She turns towards him. “The reason I asked you to come with me— Maybe it’s selfish, but… you’re his friend, aren’t you? How much he likes you… Except for that time, he’s never…” She sighs, looks down, and then swallows. With both of her hands, she clasps the wrist of his free hand. “Take care of him, please, Tsukishima-kun. I always knew he’d have to leave, that if he stayed here for the rest of his life he’d be miserable, but I’m afraid of… I don’t— I don’t want him to be alone.”

Her fingertips are warm as they curl around his skin. There’s something odd about it, and Kei latches onto the oddness just to not be overwhelmed by everything else.

Yamaguchi’s mother’s hair is a shade lighter than Yamaguchi’s, curling gently, and her nose is just slightly flatter. There’s no dusting of freckles across her face, and she’s shorter than him, stouter. Steadier.

But there’s something in the glistening dark of her eyes now that makes Kei think for the first time that she looks exactly like him. That it makes him uncomfortable how much he can see her son’s face in hers.

“He won’t be,” Kei hears himself say.

✺

“You don’t mind, do you?” Daichi asks from the seat next to him on the outside of their inn, and Kei wonders if the oddly repellent feeling in his chest counts as minding.

It’s been nearly a month since they regrouped with the rest of their party in the room they rented in the closest large town, a moderately-sized place veering more on suburb than city, and Daichi’s taken him aside after breakfast.

Kei sighs. He’d been curious about what he wanted until he wasn’t, but he preferred being curious. Though he should’ve seen this conversation coming a mile away.

“Shouldn’t you be asking Sugawara or Kageyama?” Kei asks. “I only took classes in basic offensive magic. I don’t have anything to teach him.”

“It’s the bandits again, Tsukishima. This isn’t an easy one. We need Suga. And Yamaguchi isn’t comfortable enough around Kageyama to take lessons from him alone. The kid can be harsh,” Daichi says, shaking his head. “Anyway, Suga told me that he knows all his skills already. Just get him comfortable in his own skin. Help him hone that fighting sense.”

A moment of silence passes, and Daichi turns to look at Kei, head cocked to the side.

“You know, I didn’t exactly think you’d jump at the chance, but I didn’t expect you to be this resistant. Hinata and Kageyama are the type to get mad about being sidelined on missions. Not you.”

“I…” Kei bites the inside of his mouth, too hard. “I don’t know how to teach.” It isn’t the kind of person he is. When he was still learning and his instructors paired him off with people, they’d get irritated before they learned anything.

Yamaguchi wouldn’t get irritated with him. Kei knows him well enough to know that. But he thinks about the way he flinched when Kei said something too blunt about his grip on his flames the time they sparred. How he always smiles and changes the subject whenever Kei asks about how his lessons went now.

They never trained together again after the first time. Kei thinks about that, sometimes.

For a second, Daichi doesn’t speak. Kei feels his gaze on him like he knows more than he’s letting on, but then Daichi laughs, patting him on the back too hard. “Kageyama said the same thing. Suga will help you, you know? Talk to him before we leave.”

It isn’t enough, Kei thinks. He knows how simple it must have seemed to Daichi, that he probably thought Yamaguchi was wishing it was Kei teaching him all along instead of Kageyama or even Suga. He thinks about how to explain this to him, how to reason anything out to him, and then hears himself say, “Kageyama had trouble with him, too, didn’t he?”

Daichi laughs again, lighter and more genuine than he did before. “You’re hardly Kageyama. Well, to Yamaguchi, at least.” He grins at Kei lopsidedly. “Is that really something you’re afraid of? You know we’ll be pairing you up when we fight. You’ll have to get used to it eventually.”

Kei had thought about it, at times. Hoped Yamaguchi would be more confident by then. He never thought they’d expect him to be the one to teach Yamaguchi how to be confident.

Daichi won’t understand it, if Kei tries to tell him, and he doesn’t want to tell him, anyway. It doesn’t matter. He would have let him off already if he could have. Still…

“You’re right,” Kei finally says, “but…”

Daichi exhales, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder. “It’s _Yamaguchi_ , Tsukishima. He’s your— You’re his best friend,” he says, and the words stew on the inside of Kei’s chest. _Best friend._ “He’s not ready to come with us on this mission. You know there’s no one else he’d want to stay with him.”

It’s not something Kei can argue. He knows they’ve come to see him as part of a matched set over the span of weeks, and even though Yamaguchi’s gotten friendlier with the rest of them, even Kageyama, he can’t imagine someone else in his place. How Yamaguchi would act. His situation’s left him uncomfortable enough. “You’re right,” Kei concedes. “I’ll do it.”

Daichi’s ensuing smile is tired, stretched at the ends. “Knew you’d say yes eventually. You’re a good kid. Just… whatever’s wrong with it, work it out, won’t you? We’ve made you do harder.”

“Okay,” Kei says. “I will.”

✺

The first two times Yamaguchi spars with Kei, he doesn’t land a single hit.

Kei wishes it was for a real reason. That he’d thought too highly of Yamaguchi to go easy on him, that he went all out and of course a rookie could never stand up to him. Not after he’s been doing magic for years.

But each fight ends with Kei pinning Yamaguchi to the ground out of pity, using rudimentary ice magic he only learned to get licensed for guild work. The kind of magic Yamaguchi has a natural advantage over, the kind of magic Kei knows Yamaguchi could decimate in his sleep, if he wanted to.

People usually make sense to Kei. Hinata is so loud and carries such a heavy sword to compensate for everyone thinking he’s weak because of his height. Kageyama still fights like he’s alone, never calling out for help or factoring in the person behind him, because he doesn’t know how to not be alone. These were things Kei was able to deduce in moments knowing them, the kinds of things he could read off their faces.

Yamaguchi doesn’t make sense. The way he latched on to him in the village despite his demeanor, how he risked his life for him. How he joined their party and stayed glued to his side even as people like Hinata and Nishinoya and Tanaka welcomed him in.

(He didn’t mind it. But he couldn’t understand why.)

There’d be an easy answer if that was all there was to it. Yamaguchi having strange taste in the people he wants to hang out with. Unfortunate, and not something Kei could quite wrap his mind around, but it isn’t like he relates to most people, anyway.

But it’s far from all there is to it. Moments like these, and the first time they trained together. Like Yamaguchi is afraid of him.

Kei lets him take a break, then, because his face is too expressive and Yamaguchi looks like he’s on the verge of tears. Without saying anything, he hands him a lukewarm bottle of orange juice from the bag he brought to the field, nodding after Yamaguchi thanks him.

He pulls the lesson plan Suga left out and squints at it, looks over it like there are words he missed when he pored over it for hours yesterday.

_For the first lesson, just spar with him! Don’t try to teach him anything until he gets used to you. He means well but he gets nervous. He’ll get it, be nice to him okay?_

Be nice to him. Sugawara didn’t need to tell Kei that, but he appreciates that he did anyway. That he didn’t assume this would come to him effortlessly the way Daichi did.

Yamaguchi is sitting underneath the tree Kei left his bag next to, staring down at his bottle of orange juice like there’s something written there that he needs to make sense of. Kei takes the seat next to him.

“You’ve gotten better at controlling your magic.”

Yamaguchi breathes out of his nose, like Kei told a joke, and doesn’t look at him. “Really? Sugawara-san and Kageyama-kun worked hard to teach me, but the way I fought you earlier, I don’t—”

“You can summon it and put it away when you want to. That’s…” _Something they expect you to know before your first lesson._ “…progress.”

Yamaguchi half-laughs, again, and shakes his head. “Thanks for saying that. But I… You don’t have to go easy on me. I can tell when you’re lying, so…”

Yamaguchi is looking at him, or through him, and Kei can see it, then, the cloud he’s immersed himself in, how thick and dark the air is around him. He thinks about it again – be nice to him – but Kei isn’t sure he’s the reason Yamaguchi is acting like this.

And the same way that Yamaguchi knows when he’s lying, Kei knows that’s no amount of empty words that will make Yamaguchi snap out of it. Not from him, anyway.

“It’s…” Kei starts to say, watching _something_ flicker behind Yamaguchi’s pupils, deciding it’s enough of a green light. “It’s like you’ve gotten _worse_. That time we sparred, when we just came here. You fought better then.”

Yamaguchi’s eyes are still dark when Kei turns to look. Maybe he shouldn’t have written off Sugawara’s words so quickly, Kei thinks to himself, but before he can ruminate on the thought, Yamaguchi flashes him an ear-to-ear grin. “You’re right, Tsukki. Thanks for being honest! I’ll… Let’s fight again. I won’t go so easy on you this time!”

I can tell when you’re lying, too, Kei thinks about saying. Instead he takes the arm Yamaguchi offers him and stands up.

He looks at Yamaguchi’s awful forced smile and wonders if this is the same way he felt just a minute ago, when he told him that terrible lie. Embarrassment, a little bit of irritation, and – something like gratitude.

For some reason, Kei thinks of Akiteru, but before it can cloud his sight, Yamaguchi calls his name as he sends a burst of magic his way and instinct consumes the rest of his mind as he makes a shield with a flick of his wrist.

It’s too polite, still, calling out his name, but the milliseconds it would take to burn up his chest and the way he doesn’t even wait for Kei to meet his eyes before he sends the magic his way. There’s something satisfying in it.

By the time they finish sparring, Yamaguchi’s set the shoulder of his tunic on fire, and Kei can barely find it in him to care about the shirt.

✺

“Tsukishima!” the cheery voice over the phone exclaims the second Kei puts it to his ear.

“Sugawara-san,” Kei replies, withholding a sigh. The call he’s been dreading. “How’s the mission?”

“Daichi texted you the other night, right? Things are the same,” Sugawara says. “Reconnaissance takes a while, Tsukishima. You’ve done enough of these to know that.”

“Mm,” Kei says. He has been; it’s almost embarrassing how well Sugawara can see through him.

The last time he texted, Daichi told him that they arrived safely, but everyone in town seemed to immediately go mute the second they brought up the bandits. That it’d be a while before the mission would even be over. Kei would be more useful there than here, he’d thought to himself then, the way he can read a person in a second and push their buttons until they talk.

Kei isn’t sure how he feels now. It’s been a handful of days since his first lesson with Yamaguchi, and maybe he feels differently.

“That’s not why I called, you know. How is everything? Is Yamaguchi still afraid of you?” Sugawara asks, a hint of amusement of his voice.

Kei looks over his shoulder from the place he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. The door is open halfway, and there’s no one in the kitchenette of their two-bedroom hotel room, spacious now that it isn’t being shared by fourteen people.

It’s almost sunset; Kei can see the pink of the sky through the window. He and Yamaguchi spent the daylight hunting the giant rats harassing people near the entrance to town, a favor the owner of the fashion boutique across the street offered them a decent amount of money for. Since he worked so hard, Kei gave Yamaguchi the afternoon off.

Yamaguchi insisted Kei go back ahead of him, offering to skin the giant rat corpses and bring the hides to the tailor himself. _Since you worked so hard teaching me! And because I know you’re not good with that kind of thing, too._

Kei also heard him saying something about being excited to cook rat meat the first time, but that was hours ago now. The kind of person Yamaguchi is, Kei is almost certain he’s been spending his time off training.

It’s almost depressing to think about, even if he did fight well today. How hard he works, and the way being around Kei renders almost all of that worthless. Something like nervousness.

And Sugawara asks him a question like that. _Is Yamaguchi still afraid of you?_

“A little bit, maybe. It was worse before.” He thinks of not saying anything more, but it’d be disingenuous to stop there. “Him being afraid of me. It’s worse because it’s me.”

“Were you worried about that?” Suga asks, and there’s still a smile behind his voice. “I know.”

“What?” Kei asks before he even realizes he’s speaking. “But didn’t you recommend me? Why would you—”

“Hm, well. I guess part of it is what Daichi told you. There wasn’t anyone else. Kageyama couldn’t have stayed with him.” Suga laughs openly at the thought, a light, airy sound crinkled over phone waves. “I don’t think he would forgive us if we left him behind and brought Hinata. Well, it wouldn’t be smart of us to separate them.”

That line of thinking doesn’t sound better the second time. You were the only one who could, instead of you were the one who could do it the best. But Kei isn’t rude enough to voice his displeasure to one of his seniors.

“But that isn’t the real reason. It’s… Tsukishima, have you ever heard of exposure therapy?”

Exposure therapy. It’d been in a book Kei read once. To help someone with a phobia of something by increasing their exposure to it gradually, in a safe environment. People who are afraid of spiders can start by being in the same room as them, and work their way up to letting them crawl on their skin. Things like that.

Kei doesn’t like the thought. Yamaguchi having a phobia of him.

“Of course,” Kei says.

“Impressive.” After Kei doesn’t react, Sugawara exaggerates a sigh. “There are people who haven’t heard of it, you know?”

“I can think of two.”

“Tsukishima,” Sugawara chides him gently, even though Kei’s sure he heard him holding back laughter. “But what I was explaining to you is… Ah, we did start it a little bit wrong. Having him train with Kageyama first. But it did help him warm up to me faster, so I can’t regret it that much.” He laughs again, lightly to himself. “By the time we heard about the bandit sightings, he’d already gotten used to Kageyama. Maybe we rushed it, but it is time he gets used to fighting around you. Especially since we’re pairing you up on missions.”

“I was…” Kei hears himself say, luckily realizing what he’s saying before he finishes the sentence. _Last_.

He wonders what that says about him. That Yamaguchi attaches himself to his hip, but when it comes to the thing that’s most important to him, the thought of Kei being around for it terrifies him. Unreliable, maybe, but that thought is too soft, and there’s something darker Kei’s afraid of lingering behind it, and…

Kei shakes his head. He’s always been too blunt with words, harsh even when he doesn’t want to be. It’s never gotten to him before; stupid to let it get to him now. After all, it isn’t like Yamaguchi’s let that fear bleed into all the other hours they spend together, shopping for supplies, eating meals together, searching for herbs and mushrooms in the woods.

“Nothing,” Kei says, and he hears Sugawara sigh over the phone line. For what isn’t the first time, Kei wishes he were a little bit worse at reading things like this.

“Ah, but Tsukishima, it isn’t… It’s the same as when you eat the broccoli tempura first, and then eat the sweet potato tempura last! Hmm…” Sugawara pauses for a moment, and then laughs. “I thought you’d be better at reading him than me, since you spend so much time with him. But I _am_ the best mentor in the world.”

“Mm,” Kei replies, wanting to move from this topic as quickly as possible, especially because he can barely make sense of what Sugawara is saying.

“It’s because he looks up to you. Not because he’s afraid. He saw Kageyama fight, too, remember? And he wasn’t scared of me at all,” Sugawara says, a smile behind his voice. “Not _even though_ you’re his best friend. _Because_ you’re his best friend. It’s your opinion of him that matters the most.”

Kei still can’t really understand what Sugawara is trying to explain to him, but there’s something nice about it anyway. “I see.”

Sugawara makes a noise of amused disbelief, but he doesn’t take the topic any further. “But we got off track. Yamaguchi’s improving?”

“He is. The first two times we fought, six days ago. He couldn’t land a single hit. But…” He bites the inside of his cheek. “Since then, I’ve had to fix my fire-resistant tunic twice. And... the tailor across the street, the one with the unpleasant attitude. He hired us to clear out the giant rats in the road. Those fights, ones I wouldn’t have been able to do alone with the same amount of training he’s had… They came easily to him. I barely had to interfere.”

“He’s doing well, you know?” Sugawara says. “Give yourself credit for that. It took almost two weeks for Yamaguchi to even singe Kageyama! It took a while, but your good chemistry has extended all the way to the battlefield. We knew it would eventually.”

He was better with you, Kei thinks, but he doesn’t say it. Doesn’t want to have another conversation with Sugawara over something like that. “Mm.”

“Ah. Me and Kageyama were working on a couple of techniques with him before we left. He only barely got the hang of them before we left. They’re a little flashy, and knowing him, he’s probably been too nervous to do them in front of you. Could you ask to see them?” Sugawara asks. “I know you specialize in defensive magic, but I’m certain you’ll figure it out, Tsukishima. Do you know why?”

Kei thinks to himself that he probably does, but it’s easier to humor Sugawara than it is to not. “Why?”

“Because I’m the best teacher who ever lived, and I’m the one who’s teaching you,” Sugawara exclaims, and then he hears static and muffled arguing over the phone. “Ah, I have to go now, Tsukishima. If I hog our room any longer, I think Daichi’ll have my head. Just ask if you need any help, okay?”

“Mm. Thank you.”

“Oh, tell Yamaguchi I bought him a magic dagger. He’s been trying to hide it, but I know he’s been wanting a weapon. It’ll be easier for him, if he has something to channel his magic through. Those staffs and wands he’s been asking about only amplify it. _I’m almost done, Daichi!_ ”

“I will,” he says. “You should go, Sugawara-san.”

“Ha, okay, Goodnight, Tsukishima.”

“Goodnight.”

There’s light streaming in through the doorway, Kei notices once he’s put his phone down, and he wanders out to the kitchen. Yamaguchi is standing over a pot, hair pulled back with a bandana, and the sharp scent of curry is wafting around the kitchen.

Yamaguchi is home. From how much is done, he must have been here for a while. Kei should have closed his door.

Well, not that it matters. Sugawara did most of the talking in that conversation, anyway.

“It smells good,” Kei says, standing over him to look into the pot. It’s deep red, the scent nearly overwhelming.

Yamaguchi yelps when speaks, dropping the ladle he’d been using to stir the curry and splashing red on his cheek. “Tsukki, don’t scare me!” he says, elbowing him in the shoulder gently.

“I didn’t mean to,” he replies, grabbing a napkin off the counter and wiping his face. Yamaguchi makes a face. “Do you need help?”

“It’s almost done. Just sit down,” Yamaguchi says, stirring the pot again. “How was your phone call? That was Sugawara-san, wasn’t it? How’s their mission going?”

“The same,” Kei says as he pulls himself into a chair. He watches Yamaguchi fish a spoon out of one of the cabinet drawers. “They’re still trying to find people willing to talk. Did you already bring the hides back to the boutique?”

“Yeah. The money’s in the pouch on the table. I used some of it to buy spices, if that’s okay. You know, that tailor told me he was going to make them into scarves. Can you imagine?” Yamaguchi takes a spoonful of curry and brings it to his mouth, and then wrinkles his nose and mutters something to himself about making it spicier.

“People will buy it. He’s even popular in Sendai,” Kei says as he watches Yamaguchi furiously shake powdered chili into the pot.

Even Kei’s heard his name before, and he’s never been the materialistic type. A tailor good enough that big city residents are willing to slum it in a place like this. Unpleasant attitude or not, for once, he’s happy that him and his deep pockets are in town.

“Anyway, it’s like I told you. You can spend that money on whatever you want. You’re the one who killed those rats. All I did was watch.”

“That’s not true, Tsukki. And… I don’t really need it, you know,” Yamaguchi says thoughtfully, taking another spoonful of curry and tasting it again. Seemingly satisfied, he takes two plates from the dish rack and loads them with rice, ladling curry over them once he’s done.

“Save it, then. Or send it to your mother,” Kei says, standing up and bringing the plates on the counter to the table. “Kageyama and Hinata work constantly, and the cut the party takes is enough to cover this room’s rent for the next three years. We don’t need it.”

“Ah, that’s a good idea!” Yamaguchi says, pulling himself into the chair across from Kei and handing him a clean spoon. “I’ll do that when we’re in Sendai, then. I’m excited to see it, you know! This is the biggest city I’ve ever been to.”

“Thanks for the food.” Yamaguchi repeats after him, grinning widely. It’s the same smile Yamaguchi always sends his way, but there’s always something in it that makes his chest stir. Something that makes him want to keep seeing it. Before he realizes, he hears himself say, “When we get there. I’ll show you around.”

“Really, Tsukki? I can’t wait even more, then!” he says. “Oh, but you should eat. You’re talking a lot tonight, you know? You were on the phone with Sugawara-san for a long time.”

“Mm,” Kei says, thinking to himself that he was right, earlier, about Yamaguchi being here for a while. Instead of asking about it, he takes a bite from his plate, hoping it’ll be enough to satisfy Yamaguchi so that he doesn’t ask questions if he did hear anything.

Kei’s known that Yamaguchi knows how to cook since he and his mother put him up after he couldn’t fit in the inn, but it doesn’t stop him from being impressed, every time. The sweetness of the curry is only barely overpowered by the spice, and the meat is so tender that Kei almost forgets its questionable source.

“It’s good,” Kei says, and those two words are enough to make Yamaguchi beam.

Yamaguchi swallows the food in his mouth and flashes him a toothy grin. “You really like it? I— I got a little nervous about the meat, but I thought to myself that you could never go wrong with curry, but…” Yamaguchi laughs. “It is really good, huh?”

Kei nods, and for the rest of dinner, they just eat, Yamaguchi grinning to himself between bites. It’s a pleasant kind of silence, one he and Yamaguchi have gotten used to after spending all of their time around each other.

As Kei takes their plates to the sink, Yamaguchi stands to his side and starts to speak, his voice for some reason small, hard to hear over the running water. “Tsukki?”

Kei turns off the faucet. “Hm?” Kei says, turning to look at Yamaguchi as he squeezes soap onto the sponge. Yamaguchi won’t return his gaze, just stares at his hands as he fiddles with the towel.

“Earlier, when you were on the phone, I heard you talking about those rats we killed today. And the times I ruined your tunic. It sounded like you…” Yamaguchi rubs the back of his neck. “Did you mean it?”

 _Like you were proud of me._ _Like you thought I was doing better._ Kei can hear the ends of Yamaguchi’s sentences, even as they trail off. He knows exactly what he overheard.

_Yamaguchi’s improving?_

Yamaguchi’s acting strange again. Fragile. Earlier, Kei’d been dreading the thought of Yamaguchi trying to talk to him about anything he overheard during his conversation with Suga, but looking at him now— the way he’s afraid of meeting Kei’s eyes, the quiet of his voice. Like it might be scary to hope.

If he had to overhear anything, Kei is glad that that’s what it was. Words Yamaguchi deserves to have said to him, words Kei have trouble saying to anyone. The possibility that he’ll start acting like this less, if Kei confirms the things he’s suspecting.

It’s embarrassing. But Kei knows he has to.

“You’re— How you fought those monsters, earlier. I know now, that you’re definitely not fighting me with one hundred percent of your skill. That you’re definitely not anywhere near one hundred percent of your potential. But…”

Kei swallows. Yamaguchi is looking at him now, his eyes so wide. He knows him well enough to know the things he’s saying aren’t the beginning of a dismissal. Briefly, Kei wonders how he let Yamaguchi learn to read him so easily.

It doesn’t matter. “You told me, didn’t you? That you can tell when I’m lying,” Kei points out, turning his face away from Yamaguchi and the scary thing beneath his pupils. “Stop doubting yourself, Yamaguchi. You didn’t need to ask.”

His words are too harsh, still, and there’s a second of silence where he’s afraid that Yamaguchi didn’t understand him, but… Yamaguchi’s smiling when Kei finds it in himself to look, this soft and gentle thing that makes Kei’s cheeks heat up. And then, before Kei can even take a second to brace himself, Yamaguchi’s arms are wrapped around his torso, squeezing him so hard he’s worried he’ll run out of room in his lungs for air.

This is strange, Kei knows, Yamaguchi who always has something to say suddenly at a loss for words, but Yamaguchi is warm against his chest even as the front of his shirt gets wet and something inside his ribs feels like it’s overflowing.

Comfortable silence, Kei remembers. So instead of saying anything, instead of asking what he’s doing, Kei wipes his hands on the sides of his pants, and holds him, too.

(They both run into their bedrooms after that, but the place where Yamaguchi pressed his head to Kei’s chest keeps tingling long after he disappears.)

✺

The next day, neither of them acknowledges what happened the night before, but Kei can see it in Yamaguchi’s grin as he spars with him and the newfound swagger in the way he carries himself that Yamaguchi remembers it.

He doesn’t change completely. There are still those moments that he hesitates in front of Kei, that he suddenly starts acting like he’s afraid of him. But those moments are less common now, stand out much less than the times Yamaguchi lands a hit on Kei, each time Yamaguchi creates a fire arrow and sends it with perfect precision.

Kei knows, that as much as he’s acted averse to it, he’s grateful that he’s the one they left with Yamaguchi. That if they tried to leave him behind with someone else, he’d have argued to take their place. That if he had to leave, he’d spend most of his time wondering about him, worrying about him.

But it’s those moments, when Yamaguchi pulls something off and he emanates triumph. Those are when Kei knows it the most.

He’s happy Yamaguchi latched on to him. Happy he tried to save his life that day, that he came with them. That Daichi and Sugawara left him behind with Yamaguchi instead of anyone else.

He’s happy he’s the one who’s with him.

✺

It’s deep into the night and Kei is standing in the kitchenette, pouring himself a glass of water, when he notices the uncommon crack of Yamaguchi’s bedroom door. When he goes to investigate, he realizes Yamaguchi isn’t there.

Instantly, something starts to seize Kei’s chest, but he closes his eyes and wills it to release its hold. He’s been with Yamaguchi for weeks now, and he’s seen each perfect fire arrow, how handy he is with a knife. _Take care of him, please,_ Yamaguchi’s mother had asked him, but she didn’t know, then. That Yamaguchi’s always been strong enough to protect himself on his own.

Knowing Yamaguchi, he’s probably gone out on his own, probably using even the time he’s supposed to spend asleep to practice. That thought makes something else rise up in Kei, the kind of irritation that’s bitter as poison on the inside of his mouth.

 _Take care of him_. As he takes the lamp on the countertop and lights it, Kei thinks to himself that he must have misinterpreted it, what Yamaguchi’s mother said to him. Take care of him, because he won’t take care of himself.

When Kei walks out of their inn, his steps light but hurried, he spies the light of fire bursting over out in the distance, staggered and methodical. But it isn’t necessary; muscle memory is enough to guide him to the empty lot they always train together in. He would be able to find Yamaguchi even if his eyes were closed.

Yamaguchi doesn’t notice him when he comes in through the alleyway, and the sight is almost breathtaking. He pulls his arm back delicately and releases, creating an arrow of flames that spans almost twice the length and a third of the height of his torso. The awe is enough to keep Kei’s feet planted into the ground, even as he watches it sail straight towards the wall.

Kei trains Yamaguchi here because it’s safe; the wide expanse of concrete lined by brick walls meant neither of them had to worry about causing a disaster again. But this arrow is so huge, so vibrant, that Kei is afraid it has the power to melt stone—

And then Yamaguchi flicks his wrist, and before the arrow can even start to make contact with the wall, it evaporates.

“Amazing.” Kei barely hears the word as it escapes his lips, but the arm Yamaguchi was pulling back ins head whips around in an instant.

“Tsukki? You’re—” he starts to say, and then stops. Kei can see his eyes get bigger by the lamplight. “Do you really… think so?”

Of course he thinks so. The person who he’d been watching a minute ago— Sometimes Kei thinks to himself that he must know the most about Yamaguchi out of everyone except for his mother, but the person he saw just now was so foreign he almost felt like a stranger.

Or… Not quite. He always suspected there was this side to Yamaguchi, thought he just wasn’t allowed to see it, but there’s something humbling about seeing it now. Something that makes Kei’s chest swirl, something that makes Kei want to—

“It doesn’t matter,” Kei says, because it’s too late and those feelings are too delicate and he remembers what he came here for, anyway, and it wasn’t this, he didn’t come here to _validate_ this. He walks forwards, looks Yamaguchi in the eyes. “You should be asleep. You practice magic half the day already, Yamaguchi. It’s pointless to run yourself into the ground.”

“Sorry, Tsukki,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck, but there’s a trace of a smile hidden behind his neutral expression. “I was going to sleep after that one, anyway, so…”

“I know when you’re lying, too,” Kei says, taking his wrist with his right hand and tugging him through the alley out of the lot. Yamaguchi yelps. “Do you do this every night? Sneak out of our room to practice?”

“Um…” Yamaguchi starts, and Kei can hear the gears whirring in his mind, trying to formulate a lie that wouldn’t make him angry, like he didn’t just say what he said. After a second passes, he sighs.

(There isn’t a lie that wouldn’t make Kei angry. For once, Kei is glad he knows him so well.)

“Most nights. I can’t really… I have trouble sleeping a lot. It used to make Mom upset, too,” he says. “It’s easier after I go outside and wear myself out! And I get better at using my magic, too, so it’s not really that bad, I think."

Kei sighs. “It is. You’ll get sick, the way you’re overworking yourself. You’ll lose the same amount of time you’re trying to get ahead of,” he points out. “And you were sleeping fine when everyone was here. What happened?”

“I’m not lying about having trouble sleeping, you know,” Yamaguchi huffs, a little exaggeratedly. Playful, like he’s trying to lighten the mood. But it isn’t working; Kei is still irritated with him. “It’s… harder. When I’m alone.”

Annoying. Yamaguchi hasn’t been sleeping well for three weeks because of something Kei could have fixed in minutes. “You should have told me,” Kei chides him. “There’s a second bed in both our rooms. Even if I minded, I’m not selfish enough to care about my privacy over your health.”

“Ah, but…” Yamaguchi trails off. Thinks for a second. “That’s… really nice of you. Thank you.”

It’s the bare minimum Kei could do for him, but it’s late and he’s tired of scolding him. His words are bouncing off Yamaguchi’s skull instead of getting through to his brain. “Just tell me when you need something. I’m not…” Kei _tsk_ s. “To me, you’re… I don’t mind.”

They’re at the door of the inn now, and they fall silent as they make their way to their room, so not to awaken anyone inside. The hallway is dark, and Yamaguchi takes their room key as Kei struggles with it, unlocking their door in a practiced motion.

He’s done this a lot. Irritating.

They let the silence continue, somewhere a little less than comfortable but not quite tense. Kei decides to wait for Yamaguchi to finish showering in the kitchen; even though he knows Yamaguchi wouldn’t be stupid enough to go out again, he might stay up and hide outside in the name of not bothering him.

Eventually, Yamaguchi emerges from their bathroom in clean pajamas, his hair still damp, and his eyes widen when he sees him. “You’re still awake?”

“Mm,” Kei says, even though a question like that doesn’t need an answer. He hands him a glass of water. “Let’s go to sleep. It’s late.”

Yamaguchi doesn’t argue, downs the glass and follows Kei into his bedroom, slipping underneath the covers of the bed next to Kei’s obediently.

“Tsukki, um…” Yamaguchi says, about five minutes until Kei turns out the lights. There’s an odd, thin quality to his voice, more noticeable in the darkness. “What you said before, about telling you when I need something.”

“What about it?”

“It… goes for me, too. I know I’m just… I’ve just been a burden since I came here, but … You can rely on me, too, okay?”

“Idiot. I can’t rely on you if you’re passed out from overworking yourself,” Kei says, turning from his back onto his side to face the wall. “You’re not a burden, Yamaguchi. I never thought of you as one. Go to sleep, won’t you?”

“O-Okay, Tsukki!”

There’s a sweet lilt to Yamaguchi’s voice, him reading through Kei’s tone to what he means. There’s something comforting in it, as Kei lets his eyelids flutter shut, and he drifts to sleep, and…

…it’s still dark when Kei’s eyes open again, gently even as the back of his head throbs from exhaustion. Faintly, he can hear the sound of someone sniffing behind him, and when he turns to look, Yamaguchi is sitting up in his bed, facing the window.

“Yamaguchi, did you sleep?”

Kei can see the silhouette of his shoulders as Yamaguchi jumps. He sniff again, and swallows. “You’re awake,” he says. “Ah… Sorry, Tsukki. I had a nightmare.”

He doesn’t need to apologize, but that doesn’t matter. “You told me…” Kei starts, and then pauses. He isn’t sure how to say it. _I thought this wasn’t supposed to happen anymore._

Yamaguchi hears it, the way he always does. “I… I think it’s because… before, our futons were next to each other, so maybe it’s— I can try, um… I’ll get mine from my room, and I’ll just put it next to your bed, if that’s okay, and—”

What Yamaguchi’s saying… It’s generous. It’s inconvenient when their party is spread out too thin in a new place, so that time Yamaguchi’s talking about, when they first brought him here. Daichi had been trying to squeeze fourteen people into a two-bedroom suite the way he always does.

(That time Kei stayed with Yamaguchi was… not a fluke, exactly, but Daichi thought it was funny. That Yamaguchi liked him so much. So when Yamaguchi asked Tsukishima to stay at his house, Daichi answered for him. _You should, Tsukishima. There’s no more room at the inn_.)

 _Our futons were next to each other._ That’s only almost the truth. Their futons were practically on top of each other.

He knows what Yamaguchi needs. Knows why he was too embarrassed to point it out, even if it’s annoying. With a sigh, he pats the side of his bed and folds open his covers.

“Yamaguchi,” he says. “Come in.”

He does.

✺

It’d be a lie to say Kei starts sleeping better when Yamaguchi starts sharing a bed with him, the number of times he wakes up to him crying in the night, but there’s something to be said about the quality of it. He feels more refreshed waking up with Yamaguchi’s head against his chest than he ever did alone.

That’s… Kei doesn’t feel like reading too much into it.

But it doesn’t matter, anyway. How it affects his sleep as long as he’s still sleeping. Yamaguchi’s stopped waking up as often as he used to, and the bags underneath his eyes that Kei thought were a normal feature of his face have almost disappeared. Yamaguchi is doing better, and Kei promised his mother that he would take care of him, and so it’s worth it, even at times like this. Where he wakes up to the sound of Yamaguchi crying and pats his head until he falls asleep.

“Sorry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi whispers into Kei’s chest when he rustles, and Kei pats him on the head. He laughs the way he always does, lightly and a little empty.

“You don’t need to apologize every time. I don’t mind.” Yamaguchi’s hair is soft underneath his fingers, as it brushes against his neck. “You’ve been waking up less often, anyway."

“You’re right. That’s…” Yamaguchi curls into him a little tighter. His voice is raw the way it only is this late at night, when the most you can see in the expression of the person lying next to you is a faint silhouette. “Never mind. It’s strange. I don’t…”

“Yamaguchi. If you want to say something,” Kei says, his voice less severe than it usually is, “You should say it.”

“I…” Yamaguchi breathes out playfully, rolls out of Kei’s chest and onto his back. “It’s selfish, I think, because it affects you, but… not having the nightmares anymore. It’s kind of scary.”

There’s a pleasant weight over Kei’s forearm. If Yamaguchi stays where he is, Kei thinks it might go numb soon. “I don’t understand.”

Yamaguchi is quiet, for a long time. It’s strange, in the middle of a conversation; Yamaguchi has never been the kind of person to overthink his words, especially with him.

But just as Kei is starting to wonder if he let him down somehow, not understanding, Yamaguchi starts to speak.

“Tsukki. I… never knew if I should tell you. If you might hold it against me.” Yamaguchi’s voice is thin, nervous even though it never is at night. “That book I brought with me. The one I told you I loved as a kid, it’s… It wasn’t mine originally. Someone gave it to me.”

The warmth at the front of Kei’s chest is cooling from the sudden loss off contact. Something deeper inside of him starts to feel colder.

“You know, right? That everyone in that town hates me. The reason is… Well, they didn’t like me even before, but…” Kei can hear Yamaguchi swallow. “I was playing by the river once, when I was really young, and I met this cool guy wearing a suit of armor. Like someone from a storybook! But he was hurt, and he was acting strange, so I brought him to my mom, and she looked at him, and… We let him stay with us for a long time. Even after he was all healed.”

Yamaguchi laughs, some awful bittersweet sound.

“It was fun while he was there! I never… I never really had a friend before that, or someone who liked me who wasn’t my mom, and… it was because of him, you know? That I kept working on my magic! When I was younger, I only used it for things like to light the burner when I was helping my mom make potions, but he told me… he told me how important it was to be strong, so you could take care of the people you care about. That I should use every advantage I have. And he also told me…”

Yamaguchi moves up on the bed, so his head is in line with Kei’s, and he turns to look at him. His eyes are piercing, and Kei rolls over to face the wall.

“He also told me about his cool little brother, who was my age but already so good at magic. The person he wanted to protect the most. Even though he already might be so good at magic that he won’t need him to protect him anymore.” Yamaguchi laughs. “I… I practiced every day after that. To be just like him, so I could protect people like that boy he always told me about.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Tsukki…” Yamaguchi says, and there’s something so upset, so _vulnerable_ in his voice. Kei can’t stand the sound of it. “He’s—”

“No. I don’t understand why everyone in the town hates you for that.”

“Oh. It’s… The army came in to survey the damage from the war, after we won, and… they arrested him for being a deserter. They tried to—” Yamaguchi inhales sharply. “They tried to take my mom, too, for sheltering him, but our mayor, he— he wouldn’t let them. He said it was outside of their jurisdiction. That the war was pointless and criminal anyway. And it was fine, until our crop was bad the next year, and instead of sending us support, the capital sent us tax collectors to take away the supplies we had. We had to ration the bags of rice they didn’t think were worth taking for a year. And it was—"

“It was Akiteru’s fault,” Kei says, a new, foreign kind of vitriol dripping from his words. Kei closes his eyes, and he can see it like it was yesterday. Thinking his brother was dead for months, and then seeing him again on the inside of a jail cell.

“ _No_ , Tsukki. I know you hate him, and— I know what he did, it wasn’t okay, but… I’m not a child. I won’t blame him for a choice I made,” Yamaguchi says. “Besides, I— I know the kind of impact it had on my life, but… I’m happy I found him in the forest that day. He taught me what was important. He’s the reason I know you, and… Ah, it… that isn’t a good thing for you, is it.”

Yamaguchi sighs, a huge sound like he’s choking back a sob. Like a hammer against the glacier of ice that’s formed around Kei’s chest.

“And you— you hate him, don’t you? Because he made things worse, then ran away. Maybe—” He swallows again. “Maybe that’s why I can’t hold it against him.”

Yamaguchi is sobbing outright now, his voice too high, and when Kei closes his eyes he can see the nightmares that plagued him for years, but if he turns on his other side he can see something else, maybe a new kind of nightmare, this sound that grates on his insides—

“The bandits, the giant rats, whatever we come across, Tsukki! They’ll never be as scary as the people in that town. And I left my mom there, and she must, about me— Even if she doesn’t, she _should_ , and—"

It’s enough, then. “Yamaguchi,” Kei says, finally turning over, and it’s still hard to look at him even in the dark, and— Yamaguchi isn’t looking back. Yamaguchi is sobbing, incoherently now, and Kei taps his cheek with the tips of his fingers. Some attempt to snap him out of it. “You don’t deserve to be hated.”

“But Tsukki— Tsukki, you know that isn’t true! _I_ know! I know you hate Akiteru-san, and you should even though it— it makes my chest hurt when I think about it, and…” Yamaguchi sniffs, opens his mouth to try to form words, and wails. “I’m so happy when I’m with you! I’m so happy, and my mother is still in that town, and they must hate her even more after what I did, and… if I stop having the nightmares, then it’s really like… like I left her to die, just so I could be _happy_ for the rest of my life. While she’s there…”

Kei takes the hand he used to tap Yamaguchi’s cheek and cards his fingers through the hair at the back of Yamaguchi’s scalp, pulls his face back into his chest. Yamaguchi is pliable in his hands, hair still soft underneath his fingers. He thinks of patting him on the head again, but resolves to leave his hand there. To keep the comfort against his chest.

Yamaguchi doesn’t say anything, or maybe he can’t. Kei can hear how hard he’s trying to keep his breath even, how sobs keep escaping his lips anyway.

“Your mother. She wanted you to be happy. I… would’ve anyway, but before we left, that time we went out to the market. She asked me to make sure you would be.”

“I…” Yamaguchi inhales, slowly, chokes back some awful sound. “I know, Tsukki. That she’s kind. But you… It doesn’t make sense, you know. Forgiving me, but hating Akiteru-san. We’re… I ran away. You should…”

Yamaguchi doesn’t finish his sentence because he can’t, and he knows Kei knows him well enough to hear the rest of it. _You should hate me._

But it’s Yamaguchi, whose hundreds of different smiles Kei’s learned to read like hiragana, who’s so afraid of bothering Kei that he’ll bottle things up until he runs himself into the ground, who works harder to be strong than anyway Kei’s ever met, and as much as Kei knows about Yamaguchi, as much as he’s learned in the amount of time they’ve known each other.

He doesn’t know how to hate him.

He’s just like Akiteru, Yamaguchi keeps saying, but it’s different, but… somehow, it— isn’t really. It isn’t…

Kei closes his eyes. Sees Akiteru smile at him weakly from the inside of a jail cell. Sees the time he and Yamaguchi first spoke, when he asked about his family and Kei told him he had a mother and an older brother he didn’t like thinking about.

Sees Akiteru telling Yamaguchi about him, gushing over him in way that Kei always used to pretend embarrassed him but really made him feel like he could do anything.

Kei remembers the way his mother cried, the way it felt like every single part of him shattered into pieces and he could never be put back together again. The way he didn’t come back together after finding out Akiteru was alive the entire time. After finding out he was just a coward. But Kei is older now, knows the kind of war he fought in, knows what it feels like to have fear consume your entire being, can finally imagine what it must really feel like to be surrounded by death on all corners. Akiteru should have come back the second he could, but…

Kei thinks about it. The situation Akiteru had been in. The person who you want to protect the most, the person who looks at you like you hang the stars in the sky, and the possibility that they might start hating you.

Hate, and the person lying next to him.

“I… don’t like thinking about that part of my life. It’s the first time I have in… a long time. Yamaguchi, I… can’t tell. Whether or not I hate Akiteru. It’s… Something like that is…” He sighs. “But… I don’t hate you.”

“I lied to you,” Yamaguchi whispers. “I lied to you, and since we met I’ve been causing trouble for you, and—”

“It doesn’t matter. What you think you are to me.” Kei removes his hand from the back of his head to pat him, and Yamaguchi doesn’t try to move away. Doesn’t move out of his arms. “I don’t hate you.”

Kei can hear Yamaguchi suck in a breath, like he’s going to try to argue with him again, but Kei pats him on the head again. Gently. Yamaguchi settles down then, just nuzzles the fabric of his tunic, and Kei listens to him try to cry silently.

It goes on for what feels like hours, and it should be disheartening, but… they started sleeping in the same bed a long time ago. He’s used to it by now, knows how to find something like love in the silver lining of Yamaguchi’s warmth against his chest. Something bigger and more important than sadness between all of it.

And that thought is— welcome, this late at night. Love. Kei thinks about telling Yamaguchi that. _I love you._

He isn’t sure if he’d believe him. But as his consciousness starts to dissipate, it’s a nice thing to imagine anyway.

✺

The next morning, Yamaguchi is awake and still curled into him, smiling at him with eyes just barely tinged pink.

“Morning, Tsukki,” he says when he notices Kei looking at him, and he rolls onto his back. His face is flushed from embarrassment. “I was… I didn’t feel like getting up.”

“Do whatever you want, Yamaguchi,” he says, ignoring the empty feeling between his arms as he rolls away from him, too. “You don’t sleep enough, anyway.”

If Yamaguchi hadn’t woken up crying last night, he probably would already be outside by now. Brewing potions in his room, or making breakfast, or practicing alone outside. Irritating, but Yamaguchi at least sleeps at the same time as him and stays asleep for the rest of the night. That saying about horses and water.

There’s something nice about waking up to Yamaguchi still in bed with him. The first he sees in the morning being the gentle curve of a smile that Yamaguchi isn’t doing for show, or as joke. Just because he’s happy.

But it’s morning now, and thoughts like those have consequences, and Yamaguchi is crawling out from under the covers, sitting up in bed now. “No, I… I should get up. It’s already kind of late!” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ll… Are you hungry yet?”

“I’ll make breakfast,” Kei says, sitting up and hanging his legs off the side of the bed. There’s an untouched bag of potatoes sitting on the kitchen counter from their trip to the market yesterday, he remembers. Yamaguchi’s favorite. “You should take a break. No practicing today, either.”

“Eh, but—” Yamaguchi starts to say, and then pauses. “Okay.”

Yamaguchi would’ve complained, if it weren’t for last night. As he puts on his slippers, Kei thinks to himself that he doesn’t like the way that thought sits in his mind. “I’ll go with you to the bookstore, if you want. We still have money from the last time we were at the boutique.”

“Really?” Yamaguchi asks, and Kei makes a sound of assent as he stands up. Just before he makes his way through the doorway, Yamaguchi speaks again. “Thanks, Tsukki.”

Just like him, thanking him over nothing. But maybe that’s okay, Kei thinks. Yamaguchi acting a little more like he always does. “It isn’t a big deal.”

“No, um… for last night, I mean,” Yamaguchi clarifies. When Kei turns to look, Yamaguchi won’t meet his eyes. “I was… Thank you.”

“It isn’t a big deal. I only told you the truth.”

Kei makes his way to the kitchen, then, the aftertaste of that conversation knocking too many thoughts around his skull. Ones that are amplified by the silence even as he tries to keep busy washing and dicing potatoes. Yamaguchi, and how he doesn’t feel different about him despite everything he said to him. Cowardice. His older brother.

His older brother.

“Hey, Tsukki, are you okay?” Kei suddenly hears, and he feels himself jump at the words. When he turns around, Yamaguchi is slouched forward on their kitchen table, his arms stretched over it like a cat. “You didn’t notice me when I came in.”

“I was…” Kei bites the inside of his lip, turns back to the pile of diced potatoes in front of him. Maybe he cut too many. “…thinking.”

Yamaguchi laughs. “You do that a lot! But you never really get weird like that. What were you thinking about?”

“Akiteru.”

“Oh,” Yamaguchi says, sobering immediately. A conversation he thought they wouldn’t have, Kei thinks. But that’s not what he’s trying to do.

“No, it’s…” Kei bites the inside of his lip as he puts his knife down. He needs to focus now, the kind of thing he’s trying to tell Yamaguchi. “Akiteru lives in Sendai. He works at the magic school there, the one I went to when I was younger.”

“That’s good. I was afraid he, uh…” Yamaguchi trails off. “He must be happy.”

“He…” He is, Kei thinks. About the job. But the other things… the silent dinners when Kei decided to sleep over there instead of the Karasuno house, the younger brother who won’t even look at him. Kei’s chest hurts. “No. Yamaguchi, I wanted to… He lives in Sendai, with my mother. If you want to see him again, I’ll… I’ll take you.”

“That’s… really kind of you,” Yamaguchi says, his words slow and deliberate in a way they never are, and then falls silent.

It isn’t the reaction Kei expected, when he decided to bring up Akiteru. Maybe it was overly simplistic, but he thought it’d be the same as when he offered to take him to the bookstore. That Yamaguchi would be excited to meet Akiteru again. “It’s fine, if you—”

“No, I just…” Yamaguchi pauses, and Kei can hear the sound of his breathing. “Do you— Do you really think it’s okay for me to be this happy, Tsukki?”

Yamaguchi’s words are light, not the same as they were yesterday, when every word was poisoned with self-loathing. But Kei turns around anyway, wipes his hands on his pants and then pats him on the head. Yamaguchi laughs, lightly, and smiles when he looks up at him. Some soft and quiet thing. “I didn’t know you liked Akiteru that much.”

“It’s not really… I do, but…” He stops talking for a moment, watches Kei as he sits next to him at the table. “Not as much as I like you.”

Suddenly Kei’s chest hurts again. He breathes out, trying to clear the unrelated thoughts that are clouding his mind. The way Yamaguchi looks with the sunlight from the kitchen window spilling over him. “I like you, too,” he says, because he thinks Yamaguchi will believe it.

But Yamaguchi doesn’t look at him, or smile wider, or even argue. Instead, he slumps forward, resting his chin on his hand. “No, I…”

Yamaguchi swallows. He won’t return Kei’s gaze.

“You’re really… important to me. When Sugawara told me you’d be taking over my lessons, I was… I guess there was a part of me that was happy, but most of me was terrified. That you’d see through me immediately. I’m not that good at magic, and most of the reason that I wanted to come here was...”

Yamaguchi breathes in and out, too deeply, but when Kei looks, his eyes aren’t wet. He’s still thinking. Kei doesn’t say a word.

“I was so _scared_ of you. Because you can tell when I’m lying, and when I’m scared, and when I’m nervous, and—” Yamaguchi pauses. Breathes out again. “But you didn’t… The things I was afraid of, you saw them but you didn’t… Even— Even last night…”

“Yamaguchi,” Kei finally says, because even though Yamaguchi isn’t done, he can’t just listen to him say things like this anymore. “The things you’re afraid of. They aren’t real.”

“That’s— That’s it, you know? When you say things like that, I _believe_ them. And they make me think that maybe…” Yamaguchi swallows. Turns to look Kei in the face, and Kei can see in the way he keeps moving his gaze away and back to his eyes that this is hard for him. “Tsukki, when I told you I like you, I meant that— that I _like_ you.”

Kei freezes, suddenly. The pain in his chest sharpens to the point where it overwhelms, and then it dulls, and then disappears underneath an odd kind of coolness permeating to his fingertips.

“Is that okay?” Yamaguchi asks, and there’s so much Kei can see behind his wide pupils. In the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose. The halo resting on his head, lent to him by the morning sun.

Kei cards a hand through Yamaguchi’s hair, as soft as it was the night before, and cradles his head gently between his fingers. He wonders if Yamaguchi can feel it, that feeling overflowing inside of him right now, and then presses his mouth to Yamaguchi’s.

It’s clumsy and only lasts for a second, Kei pulling back when Yamaguchi yelps in surprise. There’s something satisfying in the way his mouth tingles from the contact, but just as Kei is about to bask in it, in the look in Yamaguchi’s eyes, Yamaguchi wraps his arms around Kei’s neck and pulls his lips back down to his.

The way Yamaguchi feels against him, the way he presses too hard and sucks him in and swallows him whole is— something, something deep in Kei’s chest, something like the way Yamaguchi smiles the second after he knocks Kei to the ground. The way Yamaguchi forgets he can be.

It’s a while before they part, because Yamaguchi kisses Kei like he’ll never kiss him again and Kei hates telling Yamaguchi no. But he can’t find the space to feel empty when they stop, can only drown in how pretty Yamaguchi looks when they part. The solidity in the grin that overtakes his face, the sureness in the light of his eyes.

“I love you,” Kei hears himself say, an accidental realization of what he fantasized about last night, and it’s enough to replace the dreamy haze in his mind with better judgment. He remembers, suddenly, why he didn’t say it then. Why he settled for _I don’t hate you._

Yamaguchi is so close to him now, and Kei can see every inch of his expression. Can feel his heart beat faster as he imagines Yamaguchi breaking this moment with tears, or yelling, or arguing. This moment Kei never thought could exist, this moment Kei isn’t ready to let go of, suddenly gone under the weight of everything they’ve both been through.

But instead of anything that Kei was afraid of, Yamaguchi finds a way to grin wider and pulls the arms he has fixed around Kei’s neck closer to him.

Laughing just gently, Yamaguchi presses his mouth back against his.

✺

_“Hey, Tadashi-kun. What was that thing you did with your finger when you were making me that potion just then?”_

_“Huh? Oh, this?”_

_“You didn’t tell me you can do magic, too!”_

_“It’s, uh— It’s not that much. It wasn’t enough for them to send me to the city for magic school. I like it for when I’m making potions, though.”_

_“Hmm… You know, Tadashi-kun! My magic wasn’t that good when I was younger either. Actually, a lot of my teachers were counting on me flunking out. But I worked hard every day, and now I can make my sword light up with electricity, remember?”_

_“Yeah! It’s really cool! But… the fire I can make is so small. I don’t really think…”_

_“That doesn’t mean you should give up! Or… it’s like this: even if you can only make that little flame, I bet you could use it to become even stronger. When you punch a guy in the face, you could light his hair on fire! Something like that.”_

_“But I don’t want to light anyone’s hair on fire.”_

_“Not anyone! In this world, you have to learn to be strong, so you can protect the people you care about from bad guys!”_

_“Huh?”_

_“Like… I have a little brother who’s your age, and he has an awful personality. He can use magic, too, and he’s really good at it, like a… What’s the word? Prodigy? You actually remind me of him a lot! You’re like him, if he was shorter and nice.”_

_“He sounds really cool!”_

_“Haha! He is! And, you know, he is really good at magic, and maybe he won’t need me to anymore, but… I want to be able to protect him. He’s the person I want to protect the most! That’s why I trained so hard for such a long time. So I could protect him when I needed to.”_

_“Wow! Um… I think I understand you now, Akiteru-kun! I’m gonna train really hard and practice my magic every day so I can protect your little brother.”_

_“No, Tadashi-kun, you’re supposed to pick someone who’s important to_ you _. Like your mom!”_

_“Oh… you’re right! I’ll work really hard so I can protect my mom and your little brother!”_

_“Tadashi-kun… Well, you know, I was going to tell you to protect your own person, but I don’t think it really hurts if there’s one more person looking out for Kei.”_

_“Who’s Kei?”_

_“He’s my little brother!”_

_“Oh, okay.”_

_“So… you know, Tadashi-kun! Since you said you would. Look out for Kei if you ever meet him, okay? I would appreciate it a lot.”_

_“Okay, Akiteru-kun. I will!”_

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it! i feel like i've written a lot of confession scenes in kitchens.........
> 
> i'm considering eventually writing an epilogue about yamaguchi and tsukishima in sendai! though honestly lying about epilogues is kinda my brand now. but if you're interested, please subscribe to the fic! i'll post the epilogue as a new chapter if i am able to get around to writing it.
> 
> oh, also: whatever you felt about it, i'd appreciate it a lot if you let me know, either here or [twitter](https://twitter.com/jailsgrr/status/1270393538329673733) if you prefer that! but honestly, this was a very long fic and kind of a Lot so it means a lot that you even read this far, haha. thanks, and take care 💚


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